


Pro Bono

by Dispatches (orphan_account)



Category: Firefly/Serenity
Genre: Community: choc_fic, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-10
Updated: 2010-05-10
Packaged: 2017-10-09 09:40:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/85808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/Dispatches
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the first choc_fic challenge. Prompt #2: "Firefly/Serenity, Zoe/Inara: Awkwardness during sex - Love when you can, cry when you have to, be who you must, that's a part of the plan."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pro Bono

Zoë says, "This is business, not personal."

She says, "There's something I need."

She says, "Since he died, I haven't..."

Inara just nods and douses the incense. "I understand," she says, and Zoë breathes out, closing her eyes briefly before a flash of _him_ crosses the back of her eyelids and she has to open them again. Inara's sitting on the bed, watching her, her head tilted to one side. Zoe wants to move, but she's frozen -- and that's why she came here: to thaw the ice out before it breaks, and breaks her with it.

Since she can't seem to make a step, she rocks back and forth on her feet. "I can't -- " There's a crack in her voice; she blinks and swallows and says, more steadily, "I never done this before."

Inara stands up at that, shedding the silken wrap that was covering her arms and shoulders. "With a Companion?" she says, taking a step forward. "Or with a woman?"

Another step. Zoë can smell her perfume now, a rich, spicy scent, like the incense and not like it at all. She licks her lips, swallows. "Either," she says, the word no more than a gust of breath.

Inara touches her face, gently stroking her cheek with the backs of two fingers, laying trails of electricity under her skin. "It's all right," she says, her voice soft and soothing, the kind of voice a breaker uses on a horse that's scared of humans.

Zoë lets herself lean forward, stopping just short of brushing Inara's lips with her own. "Is this -- can I -- "

For answer, Inara kisses her, and heat blooms in Zoë's belly and creeps downward. She parts her lips and Inara deepens the kiss, licking inside Zoë's mouth gently but firmly until Zoë gets it and kisses back -- and it's not so different from kissing a man: sweeter, softer, no roughness on the skin, and she thinks she likes it.

She tries putting her hands on Inara's waist, misjudges the distance and clutches air instead; Inara chuckles softly into her mouth and murmurs "Slow down, my dear," but Zoë's impatient, wants the heat to swallow her, melt her down. She tries a move that always worked with Wash: backs Inara over to the bed step by step and then trips her and dumps the both of them onto the bed with a simple leg-sweep. Inara laughs again, and rolls them over till she's on top, pinning Zoë to the bed with those slender arms -- and damn, but Zoë never figured on Inara being _strong_.

She shifts a little, tries to break free, doesn't succeed. "What -- "

"Sh," says Inara. "You need to stop trying to control this. Control is not what you need."

"I don't -- " Zoë's panting, breathless, not only from arousal. "I don't know -- "

"Then I will teach you," says Inara, like it's that simple, and she lets go of Zoë's wrists and slides back to the edge of the bed, twisting around and pulling Zoë's feet into her lap. "Just relax. Don't even move. Let me take care of you," she says as she unlaces the boots, eases them off, sets them down on the floor; slow and gentle and not the way Zoë does it at all, and it's giving her a crazy kind of itch to have somebody do this for her. The only time she's ever let another person take her boots off was once in the war, when her squad had been stuck in a swamp for three weeks, and she'd figured trench foot was better than Buckley's Fever. On day twenty-two they'd gotten picked up an Independent medical ship and she'd had her boots half-cut, half-torn off by a harrassed, overworked young doctor who'd run out of patience and painkillers days before.

This is nothing like that. Inara's hands are gentle as they peel off the socks and rub at Zoë's soles, easing away cramps and stresses she hadn't realised were there. The first few rubs feel good; the next, after Inara leans away for a moment and comes back with hands dripping with warm oil, are better, so damned good they make Zoë moan out loud. She blushes when the sound escapes her, but Inara doesn't stop or slow down or change what she's doing, just keeps on rubbing until every part of each foot has been equally warmed and softened.

Inara gets up, then, and Zoë pushes up on her elbows to see what she's doing. "I thought I told you not to move," says Inara, but she's smiling playfully, and Zoë smiles back. "I like the view from here," she says, and gorram it, that's a pitifully bad line, but it's true: Inara's always easy on the eyes, even now when she's just wiping oil from her hands.

"Oh?" says Inara, tilting her head. She purses her lips and narrows her eyes for a second, then plucks at her dress in three places and steps out of it as it falls to the floor. "How about now?"

Zoë's breath catches in her throat.

It's not that she didn't know Inara was beautiful. It's just -- seeing now how elegant she is, the way she holds herself with one leg cocked, the henna pattern encircling her navel, the neatly-trimmed triangle of hair below -- she's not just a woman: she's a work of art.

Zoë sits all the way up. This was a bad idea. "I can't pay you what you're worth," she says.

She means to put her boots back on and go, but Inara's moved onto the bed and straddled her thighs before she can reach them. "Zoë, don't," she says, one hand on Zoë's shoulder and the other on her cheek, her eyes dark and serious. "You don't have to," she says, dropping a kiss on Zoë's cheekbone, then the arch of her eyebrow, then her eyelids, first one, then the other.

The warmth of her breath on Zoë's face sends a shiver down her spine. "I can't -- " She frowns, licks her lips. She had to come here tonight, but now that she's here she wants to run. She can already feel herself beginning to crack.

Inara runs her thumbs delicately over Zoë's eyelids. Zoë opens them, clutches at Inara's haunches to steady herself, as if she were falling. "You can," says Inara, kissing her softly on the mouth. "You must. You know this, or you wouldn't have come."

Zoë lunges, catching Inara's mouth with her own, thrusting her tongue inside desperately: no finesse here, no grace, just a question she can't put into words, and Inara -- Inara's saying _yes_ with every answering thrust of her own tongue, every squeeze of her hands on Zoë's shoulders. Those hands slide down to Zoë's sides and unfasten the buckles of her vest so quickly and deftly Zoë wonders whether many of Inara's clients wear clothes like hers; then she's ducking her head to let Inara lift the vest off and toss it away, and oh. _Oh_.

Inara's hands are on her breasts, the thumbs drawing circles around her nipples through the thin fabric of her shirt. Zoë gasps, bites her lip, then thinks better of it and lets her moan out. Inara smiles triumphantly and tugs at the shirt, pulling it out of the waistband of her pants: "Skin," she murmurs, "skin, I want your skin, I want to see -- "

Zoë fumbles with it, her fingers tingling too much to be anything but clumsy. "Wait, let me -- "

"Oh!" For all that she said she wanted to see Zoë's skin, Inara doesn't seem too bothered that she's pressed up against Zoë too close to see much but her eyes. Zoë's not bothered either. God, _breasts_. This is -- it's new and it's different and it's better than she had ever imagined, to have another woman's skin pressed next to her own, to have Inara's forehead leaning on hers, Inara's chest heaving against hers, Inara's harsh breaths echoing her own. Zoë lets her hands slide up Inara's thighs, along the skin over her hips, to her waist, dipping down to caress her belly (sweet and round and oh, soft), and the little gasps and squeaks Inara's making are better than the best saké she's ever tasted.

Inara grips the sides of her head and kisses her again, leisurely this time. She's lined them up so that their nipples are pressing together and it makes Zoë want to squirm from the damp heat pooling between her legs, but if she squirms she might tip Inara off-balance, and _God_, anything but that, anything but an end to the slide of warm skin against hers.

Inara pulls her head back and Zoë chases it, trying to catch her lips again, but Inara's not playing that game any more. "Down," she says, pressing at Zoë's shoulders, and Zoë falls gracelessly back onto the bed, taking Inara with her, holding onto her waist and her back because even now she's a little afraid that if she breaks away and lets herself _think_, she'll run out of the shuttle hell for leather and she won't even stop to put her boots on.

Inara's rubbing against her thigh now, making little breathy moans and _God_, Zoë can _feel_ her, feel the wetness soaking through the leg of her pants. Her fingers and palms are tingling and she doesn't want to stop stroking down Inara's back, but her own cunt is just as wet as Inara's and it's starting to ache. "Got to," she pants, "get these -- ""Let me," says Inara, and it just figures that she'd be great at getting people out of their pants. She's undone the buttons and shoved them down past Zoë's hips before Zoë has time to miss the way their breasts were pressing together. Zoë wriggles and kicks until the pants are out of the way, and that's kind of nice too, the way her thighs rub against Inara's and their legs get all tangled up.

Somehow in the process Inara's got hold of her wrists and she's pressing them down, not letting Zoë move. She pulls back and up till not even her hair is brushing Zoë's skin, and Zoë whines in protest, not up to using actual _words_, but Inara holds firm, looking down at her with a grave, kind face.

"Zoë," she says, "tell me why you came here."

Zoë blinks, squirms a little, testing Inara's grip. Strong as Inara is, she's pretty sure she could turn her over on her back with one hard shove. "Ain't it obvious?" she says, aiming for coyness, though she's never been coy in all her born days.

Inara's not fooled. "Tell me," she says, dipping her head down so that her hair brushes over Zoë's nipples, the touch just light enough to start electric currents under Zoë's skin, "or I'll get up off this bed and put my clothes back on, and the next time you see me, I'll call you 'Mrs Washburne'."

Zoë flinches at that, her throat tightening. "I can't -- "

"Yes, you can. I know you can." She dips her head lower, drops a kiss on the space between Zoë's breasts. "I won't stop," she says, and drags her mouth down towards Zoë's belly, laying down a trail of heat like it was a paintbrush dipped in hot water. "I promise I won't stop, unless you do," she says, and Zoë almost hates her, even as she's drawing a circle round Zoë's navel with her tongue and sliding her fingers along the creases between her belly and her thighs and it feels so good she can't stand it.

Zoë lets out a helpless moan and spreads her legs wide, lifting her head to see what Inara's doing. Inara gasps, licks her lips, then frowns and pinches Zoë's butt. "No fair!" she says, pouting. "Tempting me like that when you haven't said a word." She lowers her head again, licking up and down from Zoë's navel to the soft mound between her thighs and back again. "I can do this for hours, you know."

Zoë laughs, breathless, half-hysterical. "You're driving me crazy."

"Mmhmm," says Inara, smiling smugly.

Zoë drops her head back and closes her eyes. "I bought a dress," she says. It's a little easier now that she can't see Inara's face. "It was supposed to be a present. Not for me. For him."

Inara spreads the lips of her cunt with her thumbs. Zoë gasps, bites her lip. "Keep talking," says Inara, then she licks, delicate, teasing, around the edges of the lips, as if -- _kao!_ \-- as if she really wasn't kidding about being able to do it for hours.

"I -- " Zoë's panting now, can't help it, and it's hard to talk, but she needs Inara to keep going, needs it like nothing she's needed for a long time. "I -- never -- wore it," she breathes. "Not till... oh! ...not till after. Till the funeral." Inara's tongue is working deeper now, still moving in circles around Zoë's cunt. "Haven't worn it since. Didn't feel. Didn't think there was... ahh, _lao tien_, 'Nara -- "

Inara's voice is muffled and husky when she says "Keep talking," and, God, Buddha, _whoever_, that's her, that's _her_ that's making Inara sound like that --

Inara's stopped touching her. Talking. Right. "Everything was. Gray and. And I couldn't." She opens her eyes, then blinks: her sight is blurry from tears. "He's gone but I. It's been months, and I. I want to." Inara's tongue plunges deep into her cunt, and Zoë's almost, _almost_ there. "I want -- "

A wet, sticky sound, Inara's tongue drawing a V-shape underneath her clit, two fingers sliding in and out of her cunt. "Tell me."

"I want. I want to feel. I want -- " Her voice is choked with everything she's being pushing down inside and the tears are streaming down the sides of her face, running into her ears. "'Nara. I want. I want to _live_."

Inara's tongue swipes over her clit, once, twice, three times, and Zoë _breaks_, shaking apart from the inside out, sobbing and moaning and tossing her head. Before the pressure on her clit can get uncomfortable, Inara's pulled back, sitting up and gathering Zoë into her arms. Zoë weeps and shakes until she has no more tears, until she is left empty and peaceful with her head held gently to Inara's breasts.

Inara strokes the sweat-damp hair away from her forehead. "Better?"

Zoë nods and slides her arms around Inara's waist. "I must've got snot all over you."

Inara chuckles and rubs her back. "All part of the service."

"Service. Huh." Zoë sits up properly, still keeping her arms around Inara, but pulling back enough to look her in the eye. "Y'know, I didn't think you did pro bono work."

Inara reaches for a small box on one side of her bed and draws out two fine linen handkerchiefs, handing one to Zoë and wiping her chest with the other. "As a general rule, I don't. Companions don't. I -- " She frowns briefly, then smiles, tossing her handkerchief aside. "I was glad to make an exception for you, my dear."

Zoë tugs at her until they're falling back onto the bed, snuggles close and kisses her. "Thank you," she says, which is not the hundredth part of what she wants to say, but her eyelids are drooping and she's exhausted.

Inara drapes an arm around her shoulders. "Any time," she murmurs as Zoë drifts off to sleep. "Any time."

[end]

**Author's Note:**

> Notes: Translations of Chinese words (found in the [Firefly-Serenity Chinese Pinyinary](http://fireflychinese.kevinsullivansite.net/index.html)):   
> _kao!_ \-- fuck!   
> _lao tien_ \-- God


End file.
